文章基本信息

标题：On Aggression.
作者：Hernandez, David (American writer)
期刊名称：Harvard Review
印刷版ISSN：1077-2901
出版年度：2009
期号：December
语种：English
出版社：Harvard Review

摘要：

     My beautiful, bowlegged, jade-eyed tabby    was lounging on the patio    when a sparrow, swooping    down from the blue,    thumped against the screen door. And there    it thrashed, its claws    caught in the mesh.    How swiftly all of this happened    from where I sat on the living room couch    reading about the war--    the cat darted, leapt, his outstretched body    rising and rising    until the sparrow fluttered    in his jaws. No time to think--    the newspaper skated    across the wooden floor,    the door screeched along its track,    my hands clamped around the cat's throat    and squeezed, blood shuttling    quicker through my veins.    Drop it , I commanded,    and he obeyed. And I let go. And the sparrow    scuttled on the concrete    before ruffling a line in the lawn,    then sailed over the trellis    mobbed with lavender flowers,    over a rooftop, the black arrow    of its shadow sliding across the shingles.    The world slowed then, the blood cooled.    Far off, wind jostled wind chimes--    the sound of a broom    endlessly sweeping broken glass.

关键词：Human-animal relationships;Humans and nature;Life (Philosophy)

On Aggression.

Hernandez, David (American writer)

    My beautiful, bowlegged, jade-eyed tabby
   was lounging on the patio
   when a sparrow, swooping
   down from the blue,
   thumped against the screen door. And there
   it thrashed, its claws
   caught in the mesh.
   How swiftly all of this happened
   from where I sat on the living room couch
   reading about the war--
   the cat darted, leapt, his outstretched body
   rising and rising
   until the sparrow fluttered
   in his jaws. No time to think--
   the newspaper skated
   across the wooden floor,
   the door screeched along its track,
   my hands clamped around the cat's throat
   and squeezed, blood shuttling
   quicker through my veins.
   Drop it
, I commanded,
   and he obeyed. And I let go. And the sparrow
   scuttled on the concrete
   before ruffling a line in the lawn,
   then sailed over the trellis
   mobbed with lavender flowers,
   over a rooftop, the black arrow
   of its shadow sliding across the shingles.
   The world slowed then, the blood cooled.
   Far off, wind jostled wind chimes--
   the sound of a broom
   endlessly sweeping broken glass.